


The Taste of Sweetness

by n00blici0us



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-27
Updated: 2011-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-23 03:04:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/245584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/n00blici0us/pseuds/n00blici0us
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve remembers why he hates eating sweets and how he learned about what a cleaner was. (Or, how SuperSEAL!Steve started to learn how to become super.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Taste of Sweetness

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I have no business writing action pieces because I don't really know how to write action scenes. But... I couldn't help thinking of SEAL!Steve and how he didn't get to 5-0 without his fair share of learning experiences. (Hello first H50 fic!)

_Steve: He said there were 3 assassins, okay, which means we’re looking for 4 people: three shooters plus a cleaner.  
Kono: Cleaner, what’s a cleaner?  
Steve: It’s another assassin. My SEAL team used to hunt squads like this._

“Seriously?” Danny asks. “You’re not going to have even one malasada? Or a mere tasting of a cocoa puff? Because what we have here, let me tell you, is a plethora, a veritable cornucopia of baked, deliciousness. Kono brought malasadas and Chin brought cocoa puffs and thank god they didn’t coordinate their breakfast offerings with each other because now we get to enjoy this goodness all day.” He waves a malasada under Steve’s nose, in an attempt to persuade him. “Seriously. Just do a few extra laps next time you jump into the ocean. What am I saying; you’ll probably work it off today by chasing a few extra hooligans.”

“Hooligans, Danny, really?” Steve turns away from the sweet offering, shuffling a few papers on his desk, turning away from Danny in hopes of hiding just how much he doesn’t want to eat it. “Get off my desk; some of us have to work.”

“Work?” Danny scoffs, as he stands up from his perch on Steve’s desk, “What work? You,” he points a finger accusingly, “are allergic to paperwork and haven’t used your desk for more than storage of clean shirts to change into after jumping in the ocean or wrestling in the mud or whatever nonsense you’ve decided to get up to that day. Occasionally you’ll use it to make phone calls. So why don’t you just tell me what bug has bitten your ass and then we can all move on?”

“Nothing,” Steve says, “No bug. I just don’t really want a malasada. Or a cocoa puff.”

Danny shakes his head, “Nor did you want cake at Grace’s party. Or that sinful chocolate lava cake at Roy’s. I could go on and on my friend. What is wrong with you? You don’t eat dessert? Afraid of losing your girlish figure? Come on, you can tell me the truth; I’ll keep your secrets.”

Steve stills his hands on the shuffling papers. “No secrets,” he says. “Just classified information.”

“The reason you don’t eat sweets is classified?” Danny asks, incredulously.

“No,” Steve says, drawing out the last syllable, collapsing into his chair behind his desk. He levels a glare at Danny, willing him to leave.

Danny just stands there, not picking up on Steve’s telepathic signals at all, spreading his hands in a conciliatory manner, “You know how stubborn I am.”

Steve sighs. He does know how stubborn Danny can get, unwilling to give up on any problem. It makes him a great cop. It also makes him annoyingly persistent when it comes to Steve’s secrets. “Look, it’s not a big deal,” he tries again. “Plenty of people don’t like sweets.”

“You are not plenty of people. Normal people don’t shy away from it like it’s some sort of explosive—by the way that’s the normal reaction to explosives.”

Steve groans. “Are you seriously not going to leave until I explain this?” He doesn’t want to. He’d rather just forget it and have it be a weird quirk that everyone accepts about him, like how they all accept that Kono has an unerring way of finding the best patch of beach where ever she went.

“Not a chance babe, you know me.”

Steve grabs the malasada from Danny’s hands, scowling at him, “If it’ll shut you up,” and then he stuffs it in his mouth. This, he thinks, as the sweetness bursts across his tastebuds, instantly turning cloying, is why one shouldn’t argue with Danny Williams. His stomach starts to churn immediately and he feels hot under his t-shirt, a humidity and heat that only exists in his mind permeating the air around him…

* * *

It was somewhere in the jungles of Thailand. Steve lost track of their exact coordinates about a day ago, when they approached their fourth day tracking a group of guerilla fighters who had melted back into the jungle after one failed assassination attempt on a high level diplomat. Intel had told them that it was a group of three. His team (Mikey who had just finished BUDS, Dillon who hated these parts of their missions and preferred a clean killing in an urban scene and Nick, his partner who had been with him on 4 other missions before this one) had already managed to eliminate two of the assassins in the first two days, so now they were just trudging in this god-forsaken jungle, looking for the last one.

A quick rustling of leaves alerted Steve to the presence of someone close by. He brought his hand down sharply, signaling his team to stay still. He crouched down a little lower, straining to see through the dense foliage when—“There,” he hissed, pointing slightly left of them. Nick raised the sniper rifle to his shoulder, lining up the shot while Steve and the others drew out their weapons, just in case something went wrong.

Pop! The crack of the rifle was loud in the relative serenity of the jungle. The body dropped quickly to the ground and a flock of birds cawed loudly as they flew upwards and away.

“We got him,” Nick said, calmly, lowering the rifle. “That should be the last one.”

“Radio for evac,” Steve instructed, “Let them know that the mission’s complete and let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Yes sir!” Mikey grinned, pulling out his sat phone.

Steve stretched, slowly, letting some of the tension eke out of his body, sure that he would never stop feeling the damp moisture of the jungle everywhere, seeping into his socks, clinging to the whorls of his fingertips. He scanned their surroundings with a cursory glance when a flash of metal caught his eye. Instinct propelled him forward, yelling, “Gun!” as he hit the ground, knocking Nick down beneath him. He felt the searing pain erupt in his thigh as soon as he hit the ground. “Fuck,” he ground out in a curse, as his team started to return fire, hand already reaching for his own weapon. He quickly twisted around, pulling himself into a half-seated position and blindly pointed at the direction that he saw the glint of the weapon and squeezed off a few rounds of his own. It was only when he heard a far off grunt and the rat-tat-tat of his team stopped, leaving only the drone of the mosquitoes, did Steve let his head fall back against the mud.

“Steve,” he heard above him. “Steve. Smooth Dog. Open your eyes. Open your eyes lieutenant, and that’s an order!”

The commanding tone jarred him into prying open his eyes, which had suddenly started to feel like they weighed a ton. He hadn’t even noticed them closing. Nick’s face slowly came into focus above him. “Wha,” he managed to say, pain making his tongue numb.

“That’s it,” Nick said soothingly, “Take control of the pain; don’t let it control you.” He tugged his hunting knife out of his sheath and doused it in a bit of water from his canteen. “I don’t have the proper supplies, Steve, do you hear me? It’s going to be quick, and dirty, but we’ve got to get the bullet out. It’s lodged in there, top of your thigh. We’ve got at least five miles until the extraction zone.” He was moving around out of Steve’s view, getting something from Mikey.

So, Steve thought muzzily, someone must have radioed for evac as soon as the last threat was extinguished. “Yeah,” he bit out, reaching back to his training to keep his wits about him. “Yeah, do it,” steeling himself for whatever might follow. He had to be able to make it for the next five miles.

Nick sluiced some water on the wound and held out half of the sugarcane stick that Mikey cut down. “Bite down,” he instructed Steve. “It’s gonna hurt like hell.” He nodded at Mikey and Dillon, “Hold him down, tight.”

The other two members of his team moved on either side of Steve, hands clamping down on his biceps, their faces betraying nothing. Nick glanced at him, once, quickly, before focusing his attention back to Steve’s thigh. He took a deep breath and then stuck his knife in the wound, searching for the bullet. Steve would have jackknifed his body and screamed in pain as he felt the applied pressure if not for Mikey and Dillon holding him down. He would have bit through his tongue if not for the hard sweetness in his mouth. As it was, he wanted to curl up and assume a fetal position, but he got no reprieve; the pressure never let up. Sweat poured down his face. The sweetness of the sugarcane mixed with the blood from where he had caught his lip with his teeth and it all mixed with the pain pain pain that was emanating from his thigh but wrapped its steely hands all around him, squeezing him in its vice.

“Nothing to it, Smooth Dog. You’re doing great,” Nick grunted as his hands pushed deeper, and oh god the pain was just excruciating; Steve couldn’t bear it anymore when he felt something give. The pressure finally let up and Nick said, “Got it, just going to wrap it. You’ll be fine.” He locked his gaze with Steve’s. “Trust me.”

Steve gave one short nod. He trusted Nick and the rest of his team to have his back. As soon as Nick finished tying the bandage, he motioned up with his hands. “Let’s get going,” he bit out, spitting out the sugarcane. “Don’t want to stick around, in case.” Nick nodded and Mikey and Dillon each took an arm, supporting Steve’s weight. Steve groaned as he tested putting weight on his bad leg, but it was stable enough for him to hobble around with help. “What the fuck,” he said, “a fourth member. At least I’ll never forget that these teams come in plus one.”

Barking out a sharp laugh, Nick clapped a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Come on, pal. Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

And now when Steve remembers it, unwillingly, he also remembers how Nick Taylor saved his life, only to threaten it years later, a gun aimed at him heavy with intent, and the taste of sweetness feels even more oppressive on his tongue, the bitter ash of betrayal coating it. He swallows with great effort, chokes down the malasada, and blinks his eyes against the tears. “See?” he says quietly, “No big deal.”

Danny eyes him with misgiving and opens his mouth, probably to call him out on how difficult it was for Steve to choke down one goddamn bite when Kono opens the door and sticks her head in the doorway. “Boss?” she says, “Drug runners at the port holding a freight ship’s crew hostage. We gotta go.”

Maybe one day, Steve thinks as he picks up his phone from desk, he’ll gather the courage to tell Danny. And maybe, if Danny’s willing, he’ll let Danny kiss the taste of ash out of his mouth and replace that bitter flavor with something even sweeter than sugar. Until then, “I’m driving!”


End file.
